Human resource management is a very important aspect of any country’s workforce because it determines how the labor is hired and organized to achieve the objectives of the company. This affects the economy of the country as a whole, because good management of human resources signifies positive development in a country. Different countries have different ways of managing their human resources to realize their goals. This paper presents a comparison of human resource management between Russia and the United States of America.
Similarities
These two countries have similarities when it comes to recruitment of their employees because in the United States of America, they use a mixture of strategies entailing both position and career-based hiring of their staff. This implies that any candidate can apply for any career or position that is vacant as long as they have the right qualifications.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Additionally, these two countries exhibit similarities in relation to determining the pay. Setting the base salary is a function of the government through the use of the necessary legislation. For instance, in the United States of America, the base salary is fixed by the relevant statute and regulated by the Congress or the president. All the bonuses are dealt with at the organizational or agency level. Similarly in Russia, the government recommends the base salary, which is set in relation to inflation. Concerning bonuses in Russia, just like in America, the agencies determine how much they will give their employees (OECD, 2012a).
These two countries also have the same practices concerning promotion at the work place. In the USA, the main determinant of promotion is among all the employees of a particular organization is qualifications. Performance appraisals and experience is a major factor in promotion in USA. Similarly Russia uses qualifications to determine promotions of their employees, however, they also dwell on experience as opposed to the USA (OECD, 2012b). In both countries, respective agencies or organizations post their vacancies openly to the public or the employees who are interested to make applications.
When it comes to mobility in the workforce, its internal aspect in the public sector has exhibited stability in both United States and Russia. In both countries, public employees on external listing hold the right to retain their job and risk not getting their pension benefits if they fail to return.
Basing on employee performance, Russia and the USA employs performance assessment in making human resource decisions in a similar way like any other OECD nation. Almost every employee in these country is mandated to undergo performance assessment and they must meet with their seniors’ periodically for the appraisal. Some of the parameters that both these countries use for performance assessment include the output, “interpersonal skills and competencies” (OECD, 2012b). This assessment plays an important role in determining compensation and promotion (career advancement).
Concerning training, these two countries exhibit some similarities in that they require public employees to get some form of training during the entry into a particular employment position. In the United States of America, a number of public civil servants get training as they enter their positions, basing on the prerequisites of the particular position and the requirements of their prospective employee. Typically, public civil servants take on 1-3 training days each year. On the same note, all public employees in Russia are trained in relation to the seniority level upon which they enter a particular position. Typically in Russia, a public employee gets 7-10 days yearly worth of training (OECD, 2012a).
Differences
One of the main difference between these two countries is observed in their working conditions. In the public sector in the United States of America, the working hours per year is 1840, at least according to 2010 statistics. This figure is considerably more than the average working hours of the OECD that stands at 1745 hours (OECD, 2012b). This figure in the USA is motivated by the greater than the typical weekly working hours and taking less than usual days for yearly leave. In Russia on the other hand, the average annual working hours as of 2010 was 1642, slightly lower than the US that stands at 1840 and the OECD’s average at 1745 hours (OECD, 2012a). In Russia, this figure is a result of many days of annual leave in comparison to all the countries in OECD. In Russia, the average yearly sick days for every public civil servant is 14 days.
The communism era or the Soviet-era heritage in human resource management has brought major differences between the human resource practice in Russia and those practiced in the US. Various corporations in Russia retained some of the Soviet corporate cultures. As such, Russia’s human resource can be divided into two; those with experience working with the Soviet Union (currently above 40 years) and those who did not work under the union i.e. born post-Soviet Union era. Those who worked under the Soviet Union era; a planned economy do not have enough knowledge on how to carry out processes under the current market economy. These groups also have divergent expectations when it comes to what they expect from their employers, their understanding of how to carry out their duties and their motivations (Denisova-Schmidt, 2011).
Russia’s workforce especially those who grew during the soviet era do not have enough skills and knowledge compared to their counterparts in the US. This is due to their historic and cultural background. During early 1990s, the country saw a decline in training of personnel due to financial problems and most of them have declined to take up more training. The management work force of this group is more interested in gaining quantitative skills rather than the human factor behavior focus which is favored by the management workforce of the US. Concering the work ethic, communication within the US is very important with feedback mechanism highly recommended. In Russia communication is usually vertical, a work ethic highly influenced by the Soviet era work belief.
In comparing the two countries on the role human resource executive play strategic management of their companies, HR executives in the US have been found to hold a lower position in the corporate hierarchy compared to their Russian counterparts. Though the two HR executives play crucial roles in the development of company strategies, the Russian HR executive is also found at the company’s top managing board which is not the case in the US. Another major difference between the HR practices in Russia and the US in on the collective bargain. Russia does not have labor or trade unions machining it very difficult for its employees to stage a strike. State-owned companies have ensured that their employees are not attached to any of such unions. This is quite different from the US where workers have the right to form trade unions which could bargain on their behalf on matters such as salary increment (Gurkov & Zelenova, 2012).
Conclusion
Summing up, Russia and the United States of America exhibit both similarities and differences in the way they manage their human resources. The countries share a lot when it comes to the way they train their civil servants at entry level, how they appraise them and also their mode of promotion and remuneration among others. On the other hand they also differ, for instance when it comes to their working conditions especially in their average working hours in a year.
References
OECD (2012a). Human Resources Management Country Profiles: Russian Federation. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/gov/pem/OECD%20HRM%20Profile%20-%20Russia.pdf
OECD (2012b). Human Resources Management Country Profiles: United States. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/gov/pem/OECD%20HRM%20Profile%20-%20United%20States.pdf
Elena, Denisova-Schmidt. (2011) Human Resource Management in Russia: Some Unwritten Rules. [PDF document]. Retrieved from https://www.wu.ac.at/fileadmin/wu/d/bizcomm/04_Forschung/OnlinePapers/08-denisova_endversion.pdf
Gurkov, I & Zelenova, O. (2012). ‘Human Resource Management in Russian Companies.’ Int. Studies of Management. & Organization, 41(4), 66–80. DOI 10.2753/IMO0020-8825410404
